The head of a large cocaine network has been sentenced to almost 22 years in federal prison, prosecutors announced this morning.

Isaias Gallegos, also known as Mickey, is 32 and from Sugar Land and had previously entered a guilty plea for conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine and aiding and abetting money laundering.

The scheme involved "hundreds of kilograms of cocaine and the transportation of millions of dollars in drug proceeds to drug traffickers in Mexico," prosecutors say.

-- His wife, Suleyka Gallegos, 32, also of Sugar Land, was charged as being responsible for the receipt and sale of cocaine from Mexican drug sources to distributors in Houston and throughout the United States.

-- His cousin, Fernando Gallegos-Saucedo, 23, and his uncle, Francisco Paniagua Romero, 38, both of Houston

-- Alvaro Dalberto Palma, 33, and Keith Jamail Sonia, 36, both of Houston, were identified as cocaine distributors for the organization, while Jorge Alberto Briones, 40, and Mario Garza Mora, 37, both of Laredo, and J. Jesus Santos, 40, of Houston, were identified as transporters of drug proceeds between Houston and Mexican drug traffickers.

From November 2009 through April 2010, federal investigators seized about $1,844,760 connected to the operation, which ran out of a home in the 5200 block of Ireland.

A search of that residence in April 2010 yielded 147 kilograms of cocaine, an additional $160,704 in drug proceeds and 11 assault rifles.

Most of the others involved in the conspiracy have worked out plea bargains.